Project 323 from the ashes...

a friend of mine who went to South Africa, walked into a local dealer asking if they stock the rear wheel-bearing lock-plates ?
Guess what, they have to because they are service items !
and my local dealer has put them on order with Germany, since beginning December
For those of you who don't know, Namibia gets their parts from South Africa, not Germany
When I tried to install them, I realised that the previous owner had installed normal nuts instead of the Collar nut it is supposed to have.
Now where do I get those

In the meantime I have serviced my engine, replaced timing belts & made sure all is like they intended in München
For some it might seem going overboard, but I make sure the cam is in the right position.
To rely on marks, especially on such an old engine is putting too much trust in your predecessors
I saw the cam adjuster spring & pin were missing, but since the adjuster is locked into place I did this by feel
Also the TPS FT switch was not working. Some contact leaner fixed this & another is on order with Febi.
The car is starting to pull better now

Later this week I intend to look at some Recaro seats, that are meant for a Golf 3
To see if they will fit, I removed the passenger seat
I think the carpet still looks amazingly passable

Work caught up with me & a job in India.
Then I had to wait aaages for the OEM rear axle lock nut
Finally when I got that, I found that only the lock nut fits & not the wheel-bearing lock plates
Any of you got some photo's of how the rear stub axle is to be locked to the hub ?
or has my stub axle been cut or can one fit a shorter one

Whilst doing that I had centering rings machined by giving the engineering shop a sample hub with rim as you can see in the picture.
Well they got it wrong

On the 2'nd attempt though they got it right

Finally my goodies arrived from garagistic and I now had time to fit the speedo gears.
I leave the rest for later, as I am keen to drive this car in order to see what needs to be done next.

One of the appies screwed the expansion tank (which I am using from a Golf) cap on skew causing coolant loss & an air lock
I then flushed the system with DICAFAS and added water with 3L Caltex Antifreeze.
Whilst bleeding it, my guys managed to break a blafe of the fan
I normaly jack the left front tyre up to bleed the system.
How they got that right, I don't know
Of course this punctured the radiator
Luckily Radiators here price about 100 USD and a Summit fan about 15 USD.
The only question is if a stock 323 raditor can handle a 2.7L turbocharged M20 motor
It seems the same Thermocool radiator is also used in the E36 M52B28 version. So I hope it can

Finally I got my Bimmer on the road -I'm not talking legalities here
This morning I did my Dynorun DynoIT - N118-991W.pdf after tuning her up.
You can see a before run, which is which I did after changing Timing belt etc. & the after which is simply by tuning the VAF. The VAF is the only way this Motronic sees what load the engine is put under, as there is no proper TPS
The Average is that of the 325's I have done with Cam, head, K&N, Tuned header exhausts & Unichip tuning.
So if this is indeed a low compression 2.7L motor it has a lot more potential

I posted a movie of this on Facebook, as I do not know how to do this here

The idea is to use it as a parts runner for now & fix the problems at they pop up
Once I am happy I intend to remove the motor with gearbox, to see what motor it is. Then to fit a performance clutch & Garagistic high-tech bushings with a short shifter.
Whilst I do this I intend getting the upholstery done. I am still hoping for a bit more sporty front seats to be found
And at the same time the panelbeaters can transform it into Cinderella

Wow
Keep it coming


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